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Defending ASC Champ and 2017 Stagg Bowl runner-up Mary Hardin-Baylor comes to Jackson Field for a 6:00 p.m. ASC opener. Saturday's game also represents the home opener for the Lobos.

Media Information

Radio…...KVLF AM 1240
Web……..http://www.bigbendradio.com/
Watch Live……https://livestream.com/srsumedia/football
Live Stats…...https://srlobos.com/sidearmstats/football/summary

Quick Hits and Recap

• The Sul Ross State University Lobos fell to the Arizona Christian Firestorm by a 42-20 count in the season opener for both teams September 1 in Phoenix.
• The Firestorm outpaced the Lobos in first downs by a 22-17 margin.
• Sul Ross netted 70 yards on the ground off of 31 carries while ACU managed 145 yards off of 36 rushes.
• ACU racked up 455 yards through air while holding Sully 197.
• Sul Ross was flagged three times for 25 yards while ACU was penalized 11 times for 75 yards.
• The Lobos were 4-of-14 on third down conversion while the Firestorm went 8-for-13.
• Sully posted a 3-for-4 showing in red-zone scores-chances while Arizona Christian was perfect at 5-for-5.
• Williton Grear finished with a team-leading 65 yards of off 14 carries while ACU's Alec Hathcock posted 38 yards off of 10 carries and a touchdown.
• Marcus Montez led Sul Ross receivers with four receptions for 73 yards and a touchdown.
• ACU's Alias Sturges nabbed nine receptions for 93 yards and two scores.
• Lobo punter Manuel Retana averaged 38.4 yards per punt against the Firestorm and posted a long of 48.
• Julio Azua was perfect on point after kicks at 2-2 and was also 2-2 in field goals.

Scouting the Cru (UMHB Sports Info.)

• The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor football team dominated the first half and the Cru rolled to a 91-7 victory over Albright College in the season opener Saturday in Reading, Pennsylvania. UMHB is 1-0 to start the season. The Lions drop to 0-2 on the year.
• UMHB rolled up 659 yards of total offense with 293 coming on the ground and 366 through the air. The Lions were held to 59 passing yards and 140 yards of total offense. The Cru defense also forced five turnovers and recorded five sacks.
• K.J. Miller ran for 97 yards and set a UMHB single-game record with the six rushing TD's. Jace Hammack was 7-12 passing for 270 yards and two scores and Luke Poorman was 5-7 for 96 yards through the air. Sims finished with three catches for 76 yards for the Cru. Jacob Zuber led the UMHB defense with eight tackles in his first collegiate game and Jefferson Fritz had two of the team's four interceptions in the contest.
• UMHB set a new school single-game record with the 91 points and the 84-point margin of victory ties the school record. The Cru was coached by acting Head Coach Larry Harmon with Head Coach Pete Fredenburgserving the opening game of a school-mandated three-game suspension.

Series History

• UMHB leads the all-time series against Sul Ross with an undefeated 20-0 record.
• The Crusaders edged the Lobos, 28-25 in the first season of intercollegiate football at UMHB (1998).

Last Meeting (Sept. 9, 2017)

• Mary Hardin-Baylor  fought off a resilient second half effort by Sul Ross on its way to a 23-7 ASC-opening victory over the Lobos in Belton last season.
• The Lobos mustered just 178 yards of total offense off of 52 plays.
• UMHB posted 320 yards of total offense off of 75 plays. James Davis completed 15 of 28 passes for 144 yards and a touchdown. 
• UMHB's T.J. Josey completed 12 of 22 passes for 117 yards and two scores.
• Mary Hardin-Baylor's Bryce Wilkerson notched five receptions for 59 yards and a TD. 
• UMHB's Markeith Miller netted 98 yards off of 26 carries.
• Williton Grear netted 29 yards off of 14 carries. 
• The Lobos were penalized six times for 61 yards while the Crus committed four penalties for 53 yards.
• Sul Ross totaled 26:18 in time of possession compared to the Cru's 33:42
• Byron Jones led Sul Ross receivers with six catches for 65 yards.
• Mike Quinonez led defenders with 11 tackles (10 solos/1 assist).
• Job Mason recorded nine stops including nine stops.

Around the ASC (Sept. 15, 2018)

No. 10 Hardin-Simmons @ La. College 6:00 PM
Southwestern @ East Texas Baptist  6:00 PM
No. 2 UMHB @ Sul Ross St.  6:00 PM
Texas Lutheran @ Belhaven 7:00 PM
McMurry at Howard Payne 7:00 PM

Conference Rewind

No. 2 Mary Hardin-Baylor-91, Albright-7
READING, Pennsylvania – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor football team dominated the first half and the Cru rolled to a 91-7 victory over Albright College in the season opener Saturday in Reading, Pennsylvania. UMHB is 1-0 to start the season. The Lions drop to 0-2 on the year.  UMHB set a new school single-game record with the 91 points and the 84-point margin of victory ties the school record. The Cru was coached by acting Head Coach Larry Harmon with Head Coach Pete Fredenburg serving the opening game of a school-mandated three-game suspension.

No. 10 Hardin-Simmons-42, Trinity-33
SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' football team opened the season with a 42-33 win on the road on Saturday at Trinity University in San Antonio. Marc Reed, who was making his first career start, put the game away with a 10-yard touchdown run with 1:00 to play. The sophomore from Round Rock ran for 124 yards and a touchdown and completed 9-of-14 passes for 107 yards and two more scores.

Southwestern-37, McMurry-6
ABILENE, Texas - The Southwestern University football team rushed for 352 yards and amassed 551 total yards as they rolled to a 37-6 victory over McMurry on Saturday evening at Wilford Moore Stadium. The Pirates dominated the time of possession at 37:54 for the game while holding the War Hawk offense to 210 yards of offense including 89 on the ground.

Texas Lutheran-19, Hendrix-14
SEGUIN, Texas -- Texas Lutheran limited a high-powered Hendrix College offense to 197 yards in total offense and survived the loss of starting quarterback Kyle Grona and torrential downpours at Bulldog Stadium to notch a 19-14 win in the Bulldogs' season-opener Saturday evening.

George Fox-35, Howard Payne-3
NEWBURG, Oregon - The Howard Payne University football team committed five turnovers in a 35-3 season opening loss to George Fox University Saturday afternoon at Stoffer Family Stadium. George Fox tallied 372 yards of total offense, 209 on the ground but it was Howard Payne's four interceptions and one fumble loss that was the difference in the game. The Yellow Jackets posted 134 yards of total offense, 107 in the air.

Alcorn-78, La. College-0
LORMAN, Mississippi- The Louisiana College football finally kicked off on Saturday night as the Wildcats traveled to Division I FCS opponent Alcorn State University. Although the Wildcats showed spurts of quality play, it was Alcorn State that would dominate play on both sides of the ball in route to a convincing 78-0 win. The Wildcats drop to 0-1 on the season and will host #10 ranked Hardin-Simmons University at Wildcat Stadium next week.

Millsaps-18, Belhaven-3 (played on Aug. 30)
JACKSON, Mississippi- The Belhaven University football team faltered in its season opener to cross town rival, Millsaps College by a final score of 18-3.  

CONFERENCE STANDINGS
1 Southwestern  2-0 (1-0 ASC)
2 Hardin-Simmons  1-0 (0-0 ASC)
3 UMHB  1-0 (0-0 ASC)
4 Texas Lutheran  1-0 (0-0 ASC)
5 Belhaven 0-1 (0-0 ASC)
6 ETBU  0-1 (0-0 ASC)
7 Howard Payne  0-1 (0-0 ASC)
8 La. College  0-1 (0-0 ASC)
9 Sul Ross St.  0-1 (0-0 ASC)
10 McMurry  0-2 (0-1ASC)

Quotes from Coach John Pearce

Thoughts on the season opener
We had a lot of young guys playing their first college football game in Phoenix. They're having to grow up quick. One of my concerns was the speed of the game and the transition our freshmen had to make. I think that is where not having a preseason opponent to scrimmage hurt us.  We battled back to a 28-13 margin and I was feeling pretty good about that but there were a couple of third down and long situations that we let get away from us just because we have  such a depletion of upperclassmen in our defensive backfield. We also had some blown opportunities on the offensive side with some dropped passes and we were not able to punch it in when we got down inside their five-yard line.

On aspects to winning a game
I told our guys than one of the elements to victory at this level is sustaining and finishing drives. I was happy with our field goal unit  but we  really needed to touch the end zone when we had those opportunities arise.  We also squandered a lot of chances to make some stops because we missed tackles.

Thoughts on pass defense
Again, we're very young in our backfield. We knew that going into the game.  Even with some of the returners we have back there, it's really their first start. But I think those young guys are going to improve after watching the film. Coach Vite really hit it on the head  that we're not that far from being  a good football team. There's going to be a lot of learning curves especially with the amount of freshmen we're working with. I think that will become more apparent when we begin conference play.

On playing in a low-penalized game
It was a clean game for both teams. They had  a holding penalty on their kickoff. We had an offsides on a punt and an ineligible receiver downfield. They were mental mistakes but very correctable mistakes.

On Fabian Baeza
I thought he managed the offense really well. I thought the offense looked more comfortable with him. In our staff meeting we really stressed that we need to get our offense  geared up to where Fabian can have more success.  We did throw and catch a little bit but our receivers are very young. We had some dropped passes that were very well thrown including one in the end zone. I think right now it's a matter of confidence.  Our players have to start believing in themselves and that includes Fabian.  One of the things we'll be working on is honing his ability to see the whole field. We had one opportunity in Phoenix on a sprint out when Byron [Jones] was wide open but there were some visual contact issues that I think hurt our effort. 

Thoughts on the offensive line
I was very pleased with our young guys. Again, it's a lot of freshmen but I thought they played more physical up front than some of the older players.  They're going to have their hands full on September 15 so, again, they're going through a very fast maturing process.

On special teams
We batted a thousand on extra points and field goals. I thought our kickoffs were not as deep as we needed them to be. Junior [Manuel Retana] did a great job averaging 38 yards in punting. My goal is to have our punters averaging more than 35 yards and he was able to do that. Punt protection was good so overall I thought we  had a decent showing on our special teams our first game out of the gate.

Thoughts on an early open week
We'll focus on correcting the mistakes we made against Arizona Christian. We  had 15 missed tackles so we're going to work on tackle technique. We'll work on becoming more physical on our offensive line and focus a lot on seven-on-seven and hopefully improve on our receivers catching the ball.  We'll also begin to implement some of our game plan for our next opponent.

On hosting No. 2 Mary Hardin-Baylor in the home opener
This is a big week for us. Early last week we practiced cleaning up our mistakes in Phoenix then we began to focus more on UMHB and that will transition into this week's practice agenda. Their (UMHB's) game against Albright got ugly in a hurry. Albright tried to come out with a surprise on-side kick and one of UMHB's front lineman picked it up and ran it in for a score. They gave up two big plays on special teams and it just got out of hand. But when you look at a team like Mary Hardin-Baylor, they're a big play team. They have an explosive special teams unit, especially on their punt and kick return. But I like our game plan going into this game. I think the week off  really helped us. We had some sickness issues last week and some other players just beat up so it was a time to refocus and heal.  Playing a team like this is good experience for our young players. Mary Hardin-Baylor has raised the bar in our conference and has placed the league on a national stage with back-to-back trips to the Stagg Bowl and a National Title.

On UMHB's athleticism
They're still big and physical but they're not the same team they had the past two seasons. Defensively, they're stunting and blitzing a lot more because they have a new front four. Offensively, they're still big up front. They're young with three new starters. They're quarterback situation involves a three-man rotation and all three are pretty good. All three of them saw reps against Albright but when you're up by 90 points, everybody is going to see some action.

On the lop-sided score against Albright
Mary Hardin-Baylor has the best receiving corps we'll see all season and that really showed in their game in Pennsylvania. They have some guys that can grab a little bubble screen and they're gone. [T.J.] Josey, who was their quarterback last season, has been moved to a wide receiver. He wasn't a great passer but the  kid can run so I think he's found his notch this season at receiver.

Thoughts on UMHB's offensive game plan
Traditionally, they love to run the ball but last Saturday they ran a lot of parameter with they're outside passing game and vertical routes.  Against Albright, they ran the ball some to run out the clock and they still had some big runs. I hope we can make them run the ball.  We'll need to stop (Markeith) Miller who is one of their go-to backs on the run. We'll need to stop them from making big plays. Last year they were able to beat us on a couple of quick slants and our safety missed some tackles which is how they scored their two touchdowns. Everything else they did against us was field goals.